Chocolate mold filling apparatus may generally be classified into two types on the basis of production quantity and product variety requirements. A common general-purpose type of chocolate mold filling apparatus selectively and repeatedly pumps an individually-metered adjustable quantity of tempered chocolate from a storage tank to a fill nozzle and into a hand-moved chocolate mold aligned with the fill nozzle. No attempts are made to automatically adjust fill tube heights or fill quantities or to mechanically control mold lateral or longitudinal movements. Hence, such general-purpose mold filling apparatus is well-suited only to a relatively small or hand-production run even though a variety of different chocolate mold sizes can be accommodated.
The common special-purpose type of mold filling apparatus, on the other hand, generally is designed and operated to produce only a single product in quantity and cannot readily accommodate intermediate to large production runs involving different mold sizes and mold cavity spacings.
The teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,142 issued to Town are representative of the type of mold filling apparatus provided for meeting long-run production requirements based on a single chocolate product. The teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,847 to Ripani also relate to the same category of chocolate mold filling apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,766 discloses a chocolate mold filling apparatus that utilizes pump reversal to retain in the apparatus fill nozzles chocolate that would otherwise undesireably drip from the fill nozzles. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,268 to Kamiguchi, et. al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,808,078 to Havens, et al. for other examples of the use of momentary pump reversal to prevent dripping action.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,677,681 to Zippel, et al. and 4,720,253 to Koetges teach the use, respectively, of optical pattern and coded plug mold attachments for controlling mold filling parameters in a production process. None of the controlled process parameters, for instance, relate to or address the problems of using molds of different heights and different mold cavity spacings.
To overcome the lack of chocolate mold filling apparatus suitable for moderate production runs involving molds of different sizes, different mold cavity spacings, and different chocolate fill requirements we have invented an improved mold filling apparatus that obtains important operating advantages over the known prior art.